Asset Sales Make DST a Buy

More sales of noncore assets should further lift shares of DST Systems, which offers record-keeping services to the mutual-fund industry.

Shares of DST Systems (ticker: DST) have been on a roll. DST, the largest provider of record-keeping services to the mutual-fund industry, has seen its stock climb 29% in the last year. The Standard & Poor's 500 returned 19% over the same period.

It's not record-keeping that has made investors interested, though. DST has a sizable portfolio of noncore assets, including real estate, private-equity holdings and publicly traded...